


Scraping Up the Pieces

by Robin_tCJ



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Canon Related, Comfort Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Post-Break Up, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sort of a fix-it, Unhappy Ending, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-16 21:12:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13644546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robin_tCJ/pseuds/Robin_tCJ
Summary: A few years after CA:CW, things are almost back to normal. Team Cap is back stateside, they've rejoined the Avengers, and they're all working with one another – even if it's sometimes not all that comfortably. Steve and Tony aren't back together, but at least they can be in the same room at the same time without it ending in a fight. Most days.A rough mission puts Steve in a bad place, and Tony – who's in a bad place of his own – goes to check on him. Steve needs to feel something that isn't pain, and Tony needs to give him that.*See the end notes for any other possible trigger warnings that are spoilery





	Scraping Up the Pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kiyaar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/gifts).
  * Inspired by [This Is No M'aidez [The Shame Remix]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13620750) by [Kiyaar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/pseuds/Kiyaar). 



> Tagged MCU, but it's more 'what would happen if MCU canon and Ultimates canon had a baby?'
> 
> This is part of the 2018 Cap-Iron Man Remix Relay chain, so it's a remix of a work that was a remix of a work that was a remix of a work that was a remix of a.... you get the idea.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tony knows this is wrong, wrong, wrong. They don’t do this anymore. They don’t go check on one another after a bad call-out, they’re not drinking buddies or lovers or friends. Not anymore.

They haven’t been those things for four years. Not since Steve had stalked out of a glass-walled room, pushing away from a conference table and refusing to break up a set of pens.

Stupid fucking pens and stupid fucking Accords and stupid fucking  _ Barnes _ .

He’d been the bigger man, eventually. Dicked around with Ross a little and managed to get all the charges dropped against Steve and Natasha and Wilson and Clint and the rest of them. A team of Stark Industries lawyers taking orders from none other than Maria Hill, and it was done inside of eight months. Which, to hear Hill tell it, is basically the speed of light when it comes to international law and terrorism charges.

So he’d done that. Made it okay for them all to come back to the US, made it okay for them to be back around everyone else. The Accords got torn up and spit back out and they’re still not even ratified, so they’re all back on the team. Tony hasn’t killed Barnes yet, but they have a deal where they don’t see each other, they don’t work together unless it’s an apocalypse, and they sure as shit don’t talk about their feelings. Or anything. Literally anything.

He knows it’s not really Barnes’ fault. He knows he didn’t get to make his own choices, he knows it was Hydra. But he can’t help it, it’s Barnes’ goddamned face he sees when he closes his eyes and sees the surveillance tape in his nightmares. His brain fills in the parts he couldn’t see, and alters the things he could, until all he can imagine is Barnes, grinning with sick, twisted mania as he takes his metal hand and squeezes the life out of his mother’s throat.

He knows that’s not how it went down, but fuck it. He can only be  _ so  _ mature. 

So the band’s back together again, or whatever, but they’re still not  _ this _ . They’re not  _ check-on-each-other-after-a-bad-mission _ together. They’re not  _ stop-by-each-other’s-house-in-the-middle-of-the-night _ together.

Nevertheless, here he is, hitting the buzzer for Steve’s brownstone walk-up. It’s maybe not  _ quite _ the middle of the night, but it’s late enough that Emily Post would smack him upside the head for an unannounced visit.

Steve pokes his head out the second-storey window, glancing through the slats of the fire escape, looking tired and pale and still angry. Tony takes his hand out of his pocket and flicks his wrist in a jaunty little wave.

Steve pulls his head back inside, and a moment later the door buzzes at him as the locks disengage. Tony pulls the door open, eyes flicking away from his reflection in the glass as he heads inside.

He can’t stand to look at himself. The old man staring back at him, sick and pale and too-thin and  _ so old _ is more than he can handle right now.

No one had asked about it. That, in itself, should tell Tony just how little it matters. He’d been ready with an excuse – the stress of trying to parent a bunch of baby superheroes. He’s getting up in years, and it’s better than balding. 

And it  _ is _ better than balding. He’d sort of expected to lose his hair, that’s what always happens with everyone else. But instead, his hair had stayed full and thick and almost unmanageable. It had just turned snowy white.

The goatee only had a few flecks of silver in it,  _ actually _ due to aging. But the chemo had turned his hair white, and  _ no one had asked about it _ .

Not that he’d tell them the truth, but still.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” Steve bites out as Tony walks in. Steve is pacing, and there’s a ceramic coffee mug smashed into four or five pieces in the corner. A dent in the wall where it had hit and bounced back.

“That’s fine, you’re shit at talking anyway,” Tony tells him, moving to the cupboard and pulling down two unbroken mugs. He carries the mugs over to Steve’s coffee pot, which has just finished brewing. It’s one of the old 12-cup kinds, and he re-uses his coffee filters even now. Tony had tried to get him using one of the single-cup brewers once, before everything fell apart, but Steve had heard about the environmental nightmare of them and had immediately banned it from his life.

He pours two cups of coffee, throws a pinch of raw golden sugar in Steve’s mug, then turns around and hands it to him, leaning back against Steve’s kitchen counter to take a sip of his own. He’s not really supposed to drink caffeine, but he doesn’t sleep anymore anyway so he doesn’t care.

Steve stares down at the mug of coffee for a long moment, as though he’s not sure what it is or how it had gotten there.

“So,” Tony says a moment later. 

Steve puts the mug down on his kitchen table with more force than is strictly necessary, and a little bit of the coffee spills over the edge. Steve leaves the mug lying in its puddle and rubs a hand over his face tiredly.

“It was a rough call,” Tony says, keeping his tone casual. He stays leaning against the counter, takes another sip of his coffee, and nods a little, as though agreeing with himself. “Lotta collateral damage, lotta people died. I get that. You’re allowed to be pissed about that.”

“It’s always like this,” Steve snaps. “Every time. We go, and we try, and we do what we can, and the first thing anybody asks is what we could have done better. And this time, the thing we could have done better? Was not get anyone  _ killed _ .”

“I think you’ll find it wasn’t us who got anyone killed,” Tony says. “That’d be the psycho electro-shock guy with serious issues.”

“We need to be faster. We need to be stronger, and better, and we need to stop letting old baggage mess us up in the field.” 

“Steve, you know that’s not what happened, no one screwed up. The reality of it is, how many people  _ didn’t _ die today because we were there?”

“It’s not  _ enough _ ,” Steve snarls, whipping around to face Tony again, eyes blazing. He’s panting, almost, his chest heaving as his anger threatens to flay him open.

Tony puts his mug down on the counter and takes the two steps necessary to be in Steve’s space, and he puts a hand out, just to rest it on Steve’s arm, just to touch him and give him something to connect to.

Steve jerks back as though Tony has burned him. His eyes are wild and panicked, and he takes a step back.

Anything to get out of Tony’s reach. Jesus, he’s such a fucking idiot. Steve doesn’t want his comfort. Doesn’t want Tony’s touch. That’s not who they are anymore. It’s not who they’ve been for years.

“I’m sorry,” Tony stammers out. “I didn’t – I shouldn’t have done that.” He raises his hands, trying to be as unthreatening as possible. Takes a step back of his own, tries to give Steve as much space as he needs.

Steve breathes hard and stares at him for a long moment, eyes searching and looking heartbreakingly sad, and then he surges forward, hands gripping Tony’s biceps roughly, pressing Tony back against the counter and crowding into him, his hot, wet mouth covering Tony’s.

The kiss is biting, rough and almost violent. Steve’s mouth  _ possesses _ him, owns him and dominates him, and Tony can’t help the little sound of need he makes. 

God, it’s been – 

Steve grabs him by the hips and lifts him up, and Tony wraps his legs around Steve’s waist on instinct, winding his arms around Steve’s neck and letting himself be kissed and carried out of the kitchen.

Steve takes him to the bedroom, presses him down onto the bed and covers Tony’s body with his own, still kissing him thoroughly. Steve’s pulling at Tony’s clothes, and Tony does what he can to help. They strip each other swiftly, desperately. 

Steve doesn’t stop kissing him. Moves down Tony’s throat, the sharp relief of his collarbone, kissing each viciously purple bruise, even nipping at the skin on Tony’s chest. It’s thin and has lost a lot of its elasticity from the treatments, and he’ll get a bruise from a light breeze these days, but he just arches up into the touch. Steve reaches out for the drawer beside the bed, comes back with a bottle of lube and pulls Tony’s knee up to drape over his shoulder as he slips two slick fingers inside Tony’s ass.

It’s too fast, but God, Tony needs this as bad as Steve does, so he bites off the yell in his throat and does what he can to relax. 

Steve makes his way back up to Tony’s mouth, kissing Tony breathless while he fingers him, working him open and slick.

Tony moans when Steve pulls away, but it’s just to grab a condom and slip it on, and then he’s pushing Tony’s leg up higher and wider, and pressing in, hard and hot and blunt.

Steve immediately sets an almost-punishing rhythm. It’s almost too hard, just on the edge of too much, but Tony wants it like this, wants it hard and fast and brutal, because  _ this is what he can do _ . This, right here, this is what he can give Steve. He can’t make things better, he can’t take away the deaths Steve thinks are on his conscience. But he can moan and let Steve’s hard cock push into his body, can feel the sparks dance along his skin whenever Steve hits his prostate.

Steve fucks into him roughly, his hips hitching with each forward thrust, and Tony lets his hands claw at Steve’s back and shoulders. 

Steve reaches between them then, to wrap a hand around Tony’s cock and stroke him. As soon as he touches Tony’s dick, though, he stops. His hips stutter to a sudden halt, and he jerks his head back, giving Tony an alarmed look.

“Oh, god, are you okay?”

“What?” Tony asks, trying to thrust his hips up, trying to figure out why Steve has stopped, trying to get more. Steve is immovable, though, and he starts to pull away, starts to pull out, so Tony grabs him harder, tries to lock his legs so Steve can’t go away.

“I’m not – am I hurting you? Tony, I’m so sorry, I didn’t –”

“What are you talking about?” Tony doesn’t understand, doesn’t want to talk, he just wants Steve to fuck him, to at least give him that much. 

“You’re not – did it not… feel good?”

Tony blinks at him, knows his eyebrows are drawn up in confusion. Steve is speaking gibberish, it doesn’t make any sense. 

He almost looks like he’s going to cry. “Tony, I’m so sorry, let me –”

Tony looks down, and realizes what the issue might be.

Fucking chemo. His dick is only half hard. Between that and the way his hip bones are jutting out, poking out of his skin like some sick skeleton draped with fabric, he needs to close his eyes.

“Steve, no, that’s not – it’s fine, it’s good, it feels good.”

“Tony,” Steve says, finally managing to pull back and out. He sits back on his haunches, looking miserable. His own erection is flagging a little, too. He looks like he’s crumpling into himself with guilt. “It’s not – you don’t have to let me – I know I can be stubborn sometimes, Tony, but if I’m hurting you, you have to – don’t let me  _ hurt _ you. That’s all I ever do these days, is hurt you.”

“No, no, no,” Tony says, pushing himself up into a sitting position, swinging onto his knees and moving closer to Steve. “Steve, no, that’s not – it did feel good, it felt really good, I’m just – it’s not you, it’s – fuck that sounds ridiculous, but it’s not, it’s just  _ me _ , it’s just the  _ meds _ , not anything you did, I promise. You weren’t hurting me.”

Steve blinks at him for a long moment. “Meds?” he asks, and it’s innocent, a normal question, and he’s not suspicious or mad or concerned, just… confused.

Fuck. He shouldn’t have said that. His goddamn  _ mouth _ .

“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head in dismissal. “Not important.”

“Tony, what meds?” And there it is, that little tiny bit of suspicion creeping into Steve’s tone, because Tony never could lie properly to Steve. 

“Seriously, nothing, just some, uh, antibiotics. Little bit of strep throat. It’s really not important.”

“It’s important to me,” Steve tells him, one hand reaching out to rest on Tony’s waist, and the touch makes Tony’s skin tingle, reminds him of long nights in silk sheets and desperate kisses in the back of the quinjet where no one could see them.

“You’re better off not knowing,” Tony says, leaning forward and sitting up on his knees, getting closer to Steve. He wraps one arm around Steve’s neck again, leans in close. “I promise. Let’s just – this was supposed to be fun, yeah? We both need it. Just fuck me.”

“Tony…” Steve says, but Tony knows he’s going to win because if nothing else, Steve has always had the healthy sex drive of a mid-20s male, 96 now or not.

“Seriously,” Tony says, and now he’s pushing Steve back, crawling over him and straddling him. He grinds down on Steve’s cock, which is quickly remembering where its interests lie, and then he slides down on Steve’s hard erection, filling himself again. 

His thighs start screaming almost instantly, and he doesn’t have near the stamina he had before he started treatment, but Steve is moaning under him, hands warm and punishing, clamping on his hips, and Tony just keeps going.

He’s not hard, but it  _ does _ feel good – the stretch and burn and pressure on his prostate. It’s good. He talks through it, how hot Steve is like this, how good it feels, how much they needed this. It’s all nonsense words, just trying to fill the air with sound to try and beat down some of the intimacy of the moment.

Steve’s hand moves back to Tony’s cock, and even though it’s still not hard, Steve strokes it anyway. His hand is smooth, but his grip is nice and tight, and even if Tony never gets hard again, he’ll have the memory of this feeling in his head until he dies.

Whenever that may be.

He shivers and moans, and a few more thrusts down, Steve’s hand wrapped around him, Tony comes. Thick white come drips from the head of his dick. It doesn’t spurt or spray, it just flows out of him, pulsing in time with his hips as he uses Steve’s cock to stimulate his own prostate.

He’s trembling with effort, his whole body shivery with exhaustion, and even though Steve can’t  _ know _ that, he seems to sense it, and he rolls them, takes all the pressure off Tony’s legs, and fucks into him, fast and slick and hard, until Steve comes, too. He makes a low, rough sound in the back of his throat as he shakes and shudders over Tony, and then he drops his head to Tony’s shoulder. Buries his face in Tony’s neck where it meets his shoulder.

“I miss you,” Steve says after a moment. His words are muffled where his face is pressed into Tony’s skin. “Sometimes I miss you more than I can stand.”

Tony knows they can’t start up again. He’s  _ dying _ , for fuck’s sake, the last thing he needs is for Steve to have to watch that, to be saddled with some sick, frail, old man with one foot in the grave. And Steve  _ would _ stay, out of obligation.

Before he can even speak, though, Steve sighs. “But we’re not good for each other, Tony. We never were.”

“No,” Tony agrees, eyes hot. 

Steve rolls off him, and pulls Tony over to cuddle up on his chest. He keeps one warm arm around Tony’s back, holding him close, and pulls the covers over them.

Tony lets out a slow breath, blinking back the heat in his eyes, refusing to admit it could be tears. They’re  _ not _ good for each other. That way lies pain and suffering, they both know that. They’ve been there, and they’ve hurt each other so bad they almost didn’t survive. But for tonight, they can both be a little less alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: Tony secretly has cancer and is undergoing treatment, but doesn't tell anyone. That treatment has caused some side effects, which he lies about or doesn't talk about.
> 
> It doesn't have a happy ending, but Tony doesn't die within the story, and it isn't really implied that he dies after it – it's left open to interpretation.


End file.
